Wildlife Diary Wednesday 16th May

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the founding of the UK Wildlife Trusts movement. The Scottish Wildlife Trust is part of a wider family of organisations that manage land and work for the conservation of a very wide range of habitats and species. I am personally immensely proud to work for such a practical, grassroots and member involvement based organisation with such a proven track record. Congratulations to all our fellow Wildlife Trusts on this birthday- cake all round!

On the Osprey nest at Loch of the Lowes today there hasn’t been a lot to report, except a very large pike delivered this morning. We are eagerly keeping an eye out for signs of the parent birds listening to the movement inside the eggs- such as head tilting, that might give us an indication that hatching is near- hopefully only a few days to go!

Lastly, on the loch early this morning there was a Goosander with 20 (yes you read correctly 20) ducklings, all following and some riding on their mother- quite a sight.

The ranger team have been out surveying early wildflowers and breeding birds at Balnaguard today, and were lucky enough to see a roe deer hind with her young calf. We also planted some Apsen trees along the burn, that were kindly donated to us by Victor Clements- thanks to him and the volunteers who worked so hard today to get them in.

Roe Deer by Bryan Turnbull

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